Carrier Billing on Sub-Contacts Inherits from Parent in Odoo

We’ve added support for a new option in the “Carrier Billing” field on contacts: “Inherit from Parent”.

This feature helps prevent mismatches in shipping account and billing type logic between parent accounts and their sub-contacts. Now, when entering orders for sub-contacts, users can rely on consistent carrier billing behavior, even if the sub-contact has no billing details set.

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How it Works

Previously, if a parent customer had “Carrier Billing = Receiver” with a default shipping account, but a sub-contact had “Carrier Billing = Sender” and no shipping account set, Odoo would treat the order as “Bill To Sender” — even though the parent was the account responsible for shipping.

Now, sub-contacts can explicitly inherit the billing type and shipping account from their parent, and only override it when needed.

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New Carrier Billing option

On any contact record (under the “Sales & Purchase” tab):

• “Carrier Billing” now includes:
  • Sender
  • Receiver
  • Third Party
  • Inherit from Parent (NEW)

If selected:

• The contact uses the “parent’s Carrier Billing” type and “shipping account” when used on a sales order
• Useful for branch locations or stores under a central account

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Safeguards and behavior

• If “Inherit from Parent” is selected on a “parent contact”, a warning appears:
  “The ‘Inherit from Parent’ option is only available for child contacts.”

• If a child contact has “Inherit from Parent” set but its “parent is removed”, the Carrier Billing field automatically reverts to “Sender”

• If a parent contact is deleted, any children using “Inherit from Parent” also reset to “Sender”

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On sales orders

When a contact with “Inherit from Parent” is used on a “Sales Order”:

• Odoo evaluates the Carrier Billing based on the “parent” contact’s settings
• The shipping account used comes from the “parent”, not the sub-contact
• This works transparently, no extra setup needed during order entry

This ensures consistency in cases where billing logic is centralized at the customer account level.

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Who this helps

• Companies with “corporate billing accounts” managing “multiple locations”
• Clients who want “consistent carrier billing” across branches, stores, or departments
• Anyone trying to reduce shipping account errors or improve EDI reliability

This feature enables you to centralize billing logic while maintaining individual contact records that are clean and lightweight.